The Principle

Unprincipled Facebook Behavior When Discussing LIGO

Some of us folks from the Rational Scientific Method facebook group found ourselves over at the facebook group “The Principle” involved in a discussion about LIGO and the reported detection of gravitational waves in the aftermath of a collision between two black holes.

Most of the discussion has been removed, comments deleted and commenters blocked from further discussion. Censorship is the hallmark of religion, and a sign that persons are so attached emotionally to a belief, that they can not allow anyone else’s opinion to be heard. In this article I've presented most of my and Sungensis comments before they were deleted from The Principle facebook page.

We find this from an article posted in the forum entitled, “The Lies from LIGO \ The Principle”:

"In reality, GRT is nothing more than a mathematical lash-up, much less a 'basic feature of God's creation.' If Humphreys really wanted a 'straight-forward understanding of Scripture,' he would follow his previous work on galaxy redshifts and conclude that not only is our galaxy in the center of the universe, but the Earth is the very center of that universe. That's what Scripture tells us, from Genesis 1:1 to Joshua"

So, we see that Robert Sungenis, Executive Producer of the movie, “The Principle,” has an agenda, and not merely one to further scientific understanding, but to support his Biblical faith.

That would be fine if faith, evidence and proof were part of the scientific method... They are not.

It's a shame because Robert can see that LIGO “is a lie” and that General Relativity and Special Relativity are contradictory. He just will never understand why since he sees reality through the lens of his bible, and censors all persons that disagree with him.

Of course, Robert naturally wants to promote his movie, his article and his upcoming book, as well he should. What is not clear is if the person on the facebook page who calls him/herself “The Principle” is actually Robert Sungenis, or someone else, so we will refer to “The Principle” in the facebook discussion.

Stephen J. Crothers made a post there and was censored so others tried to clarify “The Principles” position, and I posted in order to put forth the issues as I see them, as well as explain what I think Crothers and Robitaille’s position is on LIGO’s claimed detected gravitational waves.

Crother's post:

LIGO did not detect black holes or gravitational waves, because neither exist. They are products of violations of the rules of pure mathematics, violations of logic, irrational imagination, mysticism, superstition and wishful thinking.

Going through the available comments we see “The Principle's” mantra (he says this over and over rather than addressing the salient points being made by those posting comments):

“It is, I must reiterate, pure bunk to propose that the CMB was measured from directly in back of a shielded aperture on a scientific instrument pointed the opposite direction and *hundreds of miles* above the purported source."

The argument being put forth by Stephen Crothers, as I understand it is this:

WMAP and COBE model the earth as a black body. (It is not, therefore thermal emission is a problem invalidating their calculations)

Satellite instrument's measurements and signal processing are flawed

Error rate calculated by Robitaille is much larger than reported by WMAP/COBE

Data was fudged

Basically they are trying to extract a signal 1000 times smaller than the background they are attempting to monitor.

The Principle doesn't address any of this, so I asked him this:

What IS this CMB stuff, anyways?

This is the reply:

It is:

1. The only radiation we have ever found that comes from all directions of the sky with no discrete source.

2. Allegedly the predicted remnant of the Big Bang itself, although The Principle addresses certain very serious problems with that notion- chief among them being its non-random, earth-oriented structure.

3. The frame of reference which is used to calculate the purported velocity of our local group through the universe. As discussed in the special feature "New Science", there is now a drastic and possibly fatal problem with that foundational datum of standard cosmology as well.

It is rather difficult to hold to the notion that we are moving in two opposite directions at three radically different velocities at once.

My follow-up question, which went unanswered, was this:

If radiation is coming from all points in space, how is it that FIRAS is able to extract a signal 1000 times smaller than the background? Clearly there are some fatal flaws to the data acquisition and analysis. BUT this is really an issue to be solved, as is the case in all scientific inquiry; conceptually.

What is the CMB? It is claimed to be "radiation coming from all directions of the sky," as The Principle puts it. Here is a common definition for CMB from wiki:

"The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the thermal radiation left over from the time of recombination in Big Bang cosmology. In older literature, the CMB is also variously known as cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) or "relic radiation".

Thermal radiation leftover from the big bang! Of course Big Bang Creationism is out of the question because we understand that creation of all matter, time and space is a ridiculous proposal to begin with. BUT, let's assume that there is something that is being detected and measured by WMAP/COBE/FIRAS, etc. The Principle’s position on creation is this:

This is what…Duh Principle believes in... "“God brings the entire substance of a thing into existence from a state of non-existence — productio totius substantiâ ex nihilo sui et subjecti. In every kind of production the specific effect had as such no previous existence, and may therefore be said to have been educed ex nihilo sui — from a state of non-existence

Like other words of the same ending, the term creation signifies both an action and the object or effect thereof. Thus, in the latter sense, we speak of the 'kingdoms of creation', 'the whole creation', and so on.

Creation of matter, space and time is impossible. Space is VOID, and time is motion plus memory. Without someone to remember here, then there, the concept time is meaningless. Therefore the word time is NOT a scientific term. Science removes all observers in order to be objective. Any hypothesis or theory which is founded on creation is irrational. No math, or technology, or metaphysics can explain this away. Big Bang and any CMB as a remnant are irrational proposals.

There was some other discussion covering creation, and its impossibility, but the important issue for this article is the question of LIGO and its purported detection of gravitational waves. In particular, the contention that microwaves can not circumvent the FIRAS shield and enter into the detector horn.

I continued. Thermal radiation, is what then? Heat being radiated. What is heat, but atomic motion? "What is it that is moving?" is the first question we need to answer.

Since my question went unanswered, Bill Gaede made this post:

In other words, he never told you WHAT the CMB IS. He simply said that this THING we call CMB that we detect is 1. moving radiation 2. a remnant (whatever that is) 3. velocity.

But a more fundamental problem is that he is moving concepts around…

How can radiation be coming? How can waves be going? How can energy be emitted? People who move CONCEPTS such as radiation, energy, and waves haven't taken their first course in Physics.

The Principle offers up this article for our edification: The Spectrum of the CMB Anisotropy from the Combined COBE FIRAS and DMR Observations by Fixsen, Hinshaw and Bennet

The Principe claimed that “conceptual issues precede observational issues is the very essence of the Crothers and Robitaille error."

Actually, that is NOT the case. Crothers is a theoretical mathmatician, a cosmologist, and uses the claimed language of science and physics, math, to refute Black Holes, Big Bang Creation, and so-called gravity wave detection.

Robitaille is an engineer and designed a Magnetic Resonance Imaging device. He applies his craft to the technological aspects of WMAP and COBE.

It would serve everyone well if "The Principle" would address the actual points raised by Crothers and Robitaille. These would be far more compelling than his/her claim of a shielded detector pointing away from the earth invalidating their claims.

At any rate, I have to agree with the individual who says the issues here are conceptual.

An ocean waves. I wave my hand. There are amber waves of grain. Wave is what something is doing. Gravity is attraction between physical bodies. Waving attraction is grammatically incorrect, and using waves this way is reification, or turning an abstract concept into a noun of reality...irrational, and impossible!

The fact that Mr Crothers and others are being blocked from commenting and my comments were deleted shows me that I was wasting my efforts there explaining why the shield and direction FIRAS is facing is NOT relevant to the arguments presented.

From the paper linked to by The Principle “Arrows of time and the beginning of the universe”:

“If cosmological singularities are allowed, then an infinite Cauchy surface with `random' initial data will generally produce inflating regions in both time directions. These regions, however, will be surrounded by singularities and will have singularities in their past or future. " - Arrows of time and the beginning of the universe by Alexander Vilenkin

Infinite surfaces are impossible. Why must any rational person even consider such an irrational proposal?

All objects are finite by definition. An infinite surface would require an infinite sized object. An infinite sized object would prevent any other object to exist. An infinite object would disallow any motion, as there would only be one infinitely large object and nowhere to move to!

Further, "arrow of time" is another ridiculous proposal, not only for the reason I mentioned previously about the unscientific word time, but because relating "the universe" to entropy is not possible!

It is impossible because entropy and thermodynamics does not apply to 'The Universe" (if by that we mean matter and space) because it is NOT temperature dependent to any external source;

The Universe is NOT a system because it is NOT bounded by anything; and therefore, it is irrational by definition to qualify it within the context of entropy. Matter, energy, God or anything else can not possibly escape that which has no borders: space.

"The Universe" is not an open system, a closed system or an isolated system.

The Principle said,

"I am afraid you entirely miss Vilenkin's point.

"For almost a decade now, Vitaly has been patiently, comprehensively examining each and every attempt in the literature to falsify BGV, and get around the singularities.

"No matter how speculative. Even outlandish. The point is that the singularity remains under even the most...creative assumptions. The universe began to exist.

"You advance great and swelling assertions about what the universe is and is not. They are unevidenced."

No, I didn't miss his point I quoted from the abstract and explained how infinite surfaces are impossible.

Science doesn't falsify, that's Popperian philosophy, and NOT science though mainscreamers may try to claim that it is. There is no true/false, there is only possible or NOT possible. We can ascertain what is possible conceptually, no problem. We start with our definitions. If you have a different definition for universe, we can try to go with that.

When we look at a wiki definition for singularity and Black Hole, we can see from that alone, they are impossible!

“In the centre of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a one-dimensional point which contains a huge mass in an infinitely small space, where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely, and where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate.”

We understand a singularity is impossible because only three dimensional objects can exist by definition. Mathemagical abstractions like point masses, 1D, 2D or 26D can not.

I made no great or swelling assertions about the universe, but I am open to YOUR definition, if you have one.

Evidence is YOUR opinion, and NOT part of the scientific method of inquiry, though you may feel free to make such a claim. If you do, then you will have to accept the overwhelming mathematical evidence against black holes, singularities and gravitational waves.

The Principle said:

“Since you reject true, you reject false, and you reject falsifiable, you reject science in toto, which was evident from the very first CMB-comes-from-directly-in-back-of-a-shielded-aperture-pointed-the-other-direction-and-hundreds-of-miles-below post here.

“Having fully established the irreconcilability of our first principles, we arrive at the logical end of our discussion.”

Not at all. True and false are opinion which is subjective. Science explains and does so rationally avoiding the subjective.

Naturally, you take this tact, since you have no arguments but the failed mainscream approach to science which by the way, falsifies all your claims, not mine. Yet you fail to address any issue raised against your claims and delete comments and block commenters, the sign of someone who is emotionally attached to outcomes and NOT science or "truth."

Not only do your arguments fail against mainstream science such as that provided by Mr. Crothers and Robitaille your arguments fail against rational science, logic and reason. This is why you censor and dodge. Good luck with that!

The principle accused me of making a statement I never made, to which I responded:

AND now you are confused. I never said any such thing as : "CMB-comes-from-directly-in-back-of-a-shielded-aperture-pointed-the-other-direction-and-hundreds-of-miles-below post here."

However, I am happy to go over this with the luxury of detail, if you can show how that is pertinent to MY discussion.

AND once again the claim:

“It is, I must reiterate, pure bunk to propose that the CMB was measured from directly in back of a shielded aperture on a scientific instrument pointed the opposite direction and 'hundreds of miles above the purported source.”

Not sure who made this claim mentioned repeatedly by The Principle, but let's consider it.

The claim is that the CMB is NOT a blackbody at all, as Kirchoff's Law of thermal emissivity is flawed, and Planck's equation is not universal. Without resolving this issue there is no argument from the standpoint of antenna directionality to begin with. If there are no such blackbodies, do we really need to even entertain the notion the CMB was measured if NASA claims it is a black body? No.

Continuing from NASA:

"The objective of the FIRAS instrument is to measure precisely the cosmic microwave background

“(CMB) spectrum and to observe the dust and line emission from the Galaxy. It is a polarizing Michelson interferometer operated differentially with an internal reference blackbody, and calibrated by an external blackbody having an estimated emissivity of better than 0.9999 (Mather 1982, Opt. Eng., 21, 769; Mather, Fixsen and Shafer 1993; Fixsen et al. 1994; Mather et al. 1999)."

If the internal reference is flawed, the calibration may allow observers to get what they were expecting, but in no way does that mean they are measuring what they claim is the CMB (a remnant of the BB) and at such and such wavelength.

Even if they are accurately measuring something they call the CMB, it in no way confirms, except in their own minds, an irrational origin such as the Big Bang.

Crothers and Robitaille raise good points and explain how the measurements are flawed and how the data was improperly compiled.

Once again The Principle chants his mantra:

“It is, I must reiterate, pure bunk to propose that the CMB was measured from directly in back of a shielded aperture on a scientific instrument pointed the opposite direction and 'hundreds of miles above the purported source.”

Is this a claim by Robitaille and Crothers? Let's take a look and see:

No. The claim is that COBE is detecting microwaves originating in the earth's oceans which are not interfering with the signal because they ARE the signal. The methods used are not ABLE to extract the searched for CMB which is a thousand times smaller than that received from the ocean.

COBE/WMAP folks modeled the earth as a black body source. The oceans are not part of a closed system so measuring this is a misapplication of Kirchoff's Law of thermal emission from the start.

The Sky Horn is pointing away from the earth and the differential spectrometer is supposed to provide a null point (which would be the sky temperature) using the reference horn. However, because of errors in the thermometers and other factors, the null point has a predicted error about 64 times that claimed by the COBE/WMAP team.

It therefore doesn't matter WHERE the signal is coming from, if the error is this great to begin with we must disallow all the data. Given their own calibration calculating emissivities of 1.3, there would be error introduced since emissivity should never be more than 1.

A member of the team, Dave Wilkinson, voiced his concerns that emissions from the earth "might be shining over and around the spacecraft's protective shield." Robitaille agrees with Wilkinson and says that diffraction of atmospheric photons over the shield and into the horn and even a small error as this is magnified many times in microwave frequencies of 600Ghz.

Pre-flight testing was inadequate and because the spacecraft could not be launched using the space shuttle, it underwent a re-design and the shield size was reduced nearly in half... and never tested.

The "earthshine" was never tested and the shield to horn interaction was only calculated.The fully assembled unit was never tested prior to flight. Side lob tests were done on the ground without the shield and in flight using the moon as a lambertician emitter which helps to calculate radiance. In flight tests for the low frequency RF were never done. These are the most critical because they would be most affected by diffraction.

So, as one can see, even if it is not accepted that this is a conceptual issue, technically, even members of the FIRAS team understood diffraction WAS POSSIBLE, “The Principle’s” incredulity not withstanding.

Now I am not entirely ignorant of RF in the microwave range having formerly been a Line of Site microwave equipment specialist in the military. RF can be reflected, refracted, or absorbed. This is something which is well understood to happen but not adequately explained by particle physics.

The Principle,

“Post precisely where any peer reviewed publication concerning FIRAS states, or so much as suggests as a possibility, that the CMB was measured from directly in back of a shielded aperture on a scientific instrument pointed in the opposite direction and hundreds of miles above the purported source.

“Of course you cannot. No such statement exists. It is, I reiterate, complete nonsense.

“I invite as much luxury of detail as is necessary to establish that as many times as you or any of the other participants desire it to be established.”

Did you read my comment? Doesn't sound like it. NO ONE has said such as you claim. What was explained to you was this:

Diffraction is a well known phenomena, and that was part of the claim. Please show a single publication of any kind anywhere that refutes that. Better yet, no publication needed, or expected, explain how that is NOT possible and win a Nobel Prize for yourself.

Funny, even though NASA's FIRAS team member directly mentioned the possibility that this was a problem doesn't seem to impress you much, you ask for authoritative source to tell you diffraction is possible.

Anyone who wishes to challenge that diffraction, reflection and absorption occurs needs to spend some time in the available literature. I have never found ANYone to dispute this elementary observation. An explanation of the phenomena is however not readily available using particle physics.

To me, the larger question is how NASA explains microwave transmission in space using particle physics ([ED.] but this a subject for another time).

Yet again, The Principle comments:

“It is, I must reiterate, pure bunk to propose that the CMB was measured from directly in back of a shielded aperture on a scientific instrument pointed the opposite direction and 'hundreds of miles above the purported source.”

What is unsupported is your claim. No one said what you claim was said. It is not the detection of CMB, but the LACK of detection of CMB due to the nature of a faulty premise on thermal emission, miscalibration, and ALSO the introduction of earth's MW through diffraction.

You can't refute it, and neither can anyone else by claiming it is so. Why not actually try to address the issues I raised and forget about the technical aspects that are over your head? The conceptual issues. These are the important things you need to address.

What's really funny, BTW, is that Dr. David Wilkinson who first mentioned the possibility of earthshine to the horn is the W in WMAP.

"In science, it is necessary to demonstrate how, given the laws of physics, certain physical things caused a certain physical reading on a certain physical sensor."

No, it is not. Science is about explaining reality. We do this conceptually, not experimentally, not by authority, not by mathematical descriptions, or anything else. For experiments are not explanations, they are observations; authorities are persons you worship the opinions of, and math only ever describes never explains.

"It is non-controversial that the physical things impacting the FIRAS instrument aboard the COBE satellite 900 kilometers above the earth, and pointed in the opposite direction, did not emanate from the oceans 900 kilometers below, and directly behind, the shielded aperture of the FIRAS instrument pointed the other direction."

It is very much controversial what "physical things" impact the FIRAS instruments. It is very good that you expect objects to interact with objects and not the concept microwaves to interact with the instrument object. BUT this has not been the focus of your inquiry, and I loosely call it that because you have made up your mind without reason beyond your chosen authorities to accept what YOU chose to accept as nonsense.

What ARE the physical things, sir? Waves? The real answer is way beyond the scope of this conversation. BUT not beyond your comprehension. That diffraction of microwaves is seen on earth and in space is not even contested by anyone with the exception of you apparently. It matters not which way the horn is facing, it will pick up some mw signals regardless, which you would understand if you read through the vast literature available on em spectra and RF propagation. Particularly on mw propagation, antennas, and instrument calibration, etc.

None the less, it is possible and highly likely that mw though diffraction interfered with the instrument and because of miscalibration the instrument magnified the error and it was mistaken as the ill conceived CMB.

What is impossible is that the so-called CMB is a remnant (whatever that is) of Big Bang Creation.

"Thank God for that, else the preposterous comedy skit that Crothers and Robitaille are trotting out would be unfalsifiable. Instead, it is not even wrong."

What is laughable is that Crothers and Robitaille are the focus of your mantra instead of the salient points of the arguments presented. For Robitaille is a superior technician and master at signal analysis which seems to be the type of authority and expert opinion you would be looking for. AND Stephen Crothers is a cosmologist and an extraordinary theoretical mathematician which speaks the language of mainstream science. He has published many, many papers, and even a cursory look at them would show the uninitiated that he understands what he is talking about. Both use the scientific method YOU prefer of falsifiability and have done so repeatedly in the material I have read by them.

Never-the-less it is not the persons that we should concern ourselves with but the content. Unfortunately, you lack the basic understanding of science in general, and physics in particular, which makes it nearly impossible to impart any understanding of the more advanced topics you wish to portray in your movie, or argue here.

The quote from Dr. Wilkinson came from the article presented earlier by Stephen Crothers. So, unless you want to call him a liar to his face I guess you can look for another source. AND actually you would have to challenge Robitailleas he claims Wilkinson mentioned it in several meetings. The references quoted by Crothers are 3, and 8 both Papers written by Robitaille. http://www.sjcrothers.plasmaresources.com/COBEwmap-3.pdf

Now let me ask you this...

You say:

"The CMB was detected from directly behind the shielded aperture of a scientific instrument pointed in the opposite direction and hundreds of miles above the purported source."

Where did you get that? If you are so quick to demand that I give some authoritative reference for earthshine, then I must ask you to show a single article from some authoritative source claiming that diffraction around the shield is impossible. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, eh?

Meanwhile we can solve this conceptually.

Do you not understand the purpose of the shield? It is to block out the majority of the signal (no shield is 100 percent effective). AND if it is not 100 percent effective what do you suppose would happen if there are other errors such as miscalibration?

In response to this in the Rational Scientific Method forum:

"Stephen Crothers is welcome to post his responses to The un-Principled here where they will not be deleted."

This response from Stephen Crothers :

”The so-called 'Cosmic Microwave Background' ('CMB') is inextricably intertwined with Big Bang creationism from General Relativity. Without the 'CMB', Big Bang creationism and General Rela-tivity are dead. The reasons why the 'CMB' does not exist are simply stated:

(1) Kirchhoff's Law of Thermal Emission is false.

(2) Due to (1), Planck's equation for thermal spectra is not universal.

“NMR and MRI are thermal processes. That they exist is physical proof of the invalidity of Kirchhoff's Law of Thermal Emission and the non-universality of Planck's equation. If Kirchhoff's Law of Thermal Emission is true and Planck's equation is universal, then NMR and MRI would be impossible, because NMR and MRI utilise lattice-spin relaxation. The existence of clinical MRI and its use in medicine proves that Kirchhoff's Law of Thermal Emission is false and that Planck's equa-tion is not universal. This means that the 'CMB' does not exist because it requires the validity of Kirchhoff's Law of Thermal Emission and universality of Planck's equation. Hence, Big Bang crea-tionism and General Relativity are dead.

“Consequently, when Penzias and Wilson assigned a temperature to their residual signal and the theoreticians assigned that signal to the Cosmos, they violated the laws of thermal emission. It is a scientific fact that no monopole signal has ever been detected beyond ~900 km of Earth. The signal is proximal (i.e. from Earth). The FIRAS shield did not protect it from microwave diffraction into its receiver.”

“Put a glass of water inside a microwave oven and turn on the oven. The water gets hotter because it absorbs microwaves. It is well known to radio communications engineers that microwave radio can-not be used by submarines under water because water absorbs the microwave signals. These two simple examples show that water absorbs microwaves. It is also well known from the laboratory that a good absorber is also a good emitter, at the same frequencies. Approximately 70% of the sur-face of Earth is covered by water. This water is not microwave silent. The COBE satellite did not report any microwave interference from Earth. That is because the oceans on Earth are the source of the signal. COBE operated 30GHz to 3000GHz. There was a shield on COBE. No shield can be built to cover a 100 fold range in frequencies. Examination of the COBE shield design reveals that it was incapable of preventing stray microwave signals from entering the detector. It does not matter therefore in which direction COBE was pointed. At its altitude of ~900km it was well within the range of microwaves emissions from the oceans, which diffracted over the shield and straight into its detector. The monopole signal detected by COBE (for the mean temperature of ~2.725 K) is a blackbody spectrum. Only condensed matter can emit a Planckian (i.e. blackbody) distribution. Gases emit only in narrow bands. Water is condensed matter. The microwave emission from the oceans is scattered by the atmosphere. Water is bound by two chemical bonds: (a) the hydroxyl bond and (b) the hydrogen bond. The hydroxyl bond strongly binds an oxygen atom to a hydrogen atom in the wat3er molecule. The hydrogen weakly bonds one water molecule to another water molecule. It is the hydrogen bond which is responsible for microwave emissions from water. The hydroxyl bond is ~100 time stronger than the hydrogen bond. Thus, if the oceans are ~ 300 K then the microwave emission from water is ~3 K. Although the microwave spectrum from the oceans is a Planckian spectrum, because the oceans are not black bodies, the temperature extracted from the water microwave spectrum is not the actual temperature of the emission source. This is an example of the non-universality of Planck’s equation. The temperature extracted from a true black body, such as soot, at thermal equilibrium, reveals the temperature of the source of emission. If it is not a black body yet has a Planckian spectrum distribution, then the temperature extracted from the spec-trum is only an apparent temperature, not the true temperature of the emitter, because Planck’s equation is not universal, contrary to the claims of the physicists and cosmologists.

AND this:Thank you for your post, Stephen Crothers. Would you please elaborate on this statement:

"If Kirchhoff's Law of Thermal Emission is true and Planck's equation is universal, then NMR and MRI would be impossible, because NMR and MRI utilise lattice-spin relaxation"

Why does lattice-spin relaxation invalidate Kirchoff's law of thermal emission and the universality of Plank's equation?

Stephen J. Crothers summarizes:

“Kirchhoff and Planck permitted all energy in the walls of arbitrary cavities to be available to the emission field. The fact that MRI and NMR utilise spin-lattice relaxation means that there is in fact energy within the walls of arbitrary cavities that is not available to thermal emission. This energy is trapped within the lattice of a material in such a way that it cannot be exchanged with the thermal emission field, but is available to spin-lattice relaxation. This is proof that Kirchhoff's Law of Thermal Emission is false and that Planck's equation is not universal. Hence, the 'CMB does not exist'. COBE FIRAS detected microwave emissions from the oceans on Earth, which diffracted over its shield. The COBE shield was incapable of preventing microwave diffraction over its shield, no matter what direction the FIRAS horn pointed. A microwave shield requires special design that was not part of the COBE shield. The COBE shield could never work as intended by the cosmologists. The 'CMB' does not exist, but water certainly emits microwaves via the hydrogen bond, as a Planckian spectrum at an apparent temperature of ~3 K. The oceans are not at 3 K: more like 300 K. The apparent temperature is because Planck's equation is not universal. One cannot tell, from its spectrum, the temperature of a thermal emitter that is not a blackbody, unless one has a priori knowledge of the nature of the emitter.” – Stephen J. Crothers